


This Passing World

by wendelah1



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Extras, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-12-03 15:44:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/699895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendelah1/pseuds/wendelah1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder goes home. Minor spoilers for "Kill Switch." Future fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Passing World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mala_ptica](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mala_ptica/gifts).



> The title is from Alice Notley's [The Goddess Who Created This Passing World](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177353).
> 
> Thanks to my husband, Kyle, for his editing help and unwavering support.

_Mahoning_ , Franz Kline

"Are you ready, Mr. Mulder?"

"I guess so. Will it hurt?" This bed wasn't very comfortable, and he hated being restrained. He wouldn't be there for long.

"No, not at all. It will be just like before, like going to sleep. Except when you wake up this time, you'll be home again."

The technology allowed for the human consciousness to go on without the physical body. You uploaded your memories into a computer, which then created a virtual living room for you, complete with your favorite music, art, vacations you'd taken, books you had read. Any memory that had been stored there was freely available, as well as a library of new experiences to sample if you got tired of reliving your own. You could even have visitors from the real world, although they couldn't stay for long. Mulder didn't understand how that worked but he wasn't expecting any company. 

It wasn't the way Esther Nairn and her David had imagined it would be, but virtual reality was a reality. There were plenty of people who were opting out and heading to _Heaven on Earth_ ©. It made sense to Mulder. He was nearing eighty. He was fed up with taking an ever increasing array of pills, sick of getting up in the middle of the night to urinate. Twice. 

He was tired of waking up alone.

"Will I remember my old FBI cases?" It wasn't Flukeman or Eugene Tooms he was interested in revisiting, but the woman with whom he was working the cases. Scully. He missed her so much. 

"Certainly. Your memory was remarkably intact for a man your age." Mulder wondered about that, but it didn't matter now. 

Even if she had survived to see it, Scully wouldn't have had anything to do with _Heaven on Earth_ ©. He could hear her voice as though it were yesterday. "Electrons chasing each other through a circuit—that isn't life, Mulder." She'd be trying to talk him out of it. Of course, if she were here, well. 

Since he had no family, a corporate representative would visit him every so often, make sure he was making the adjustment. He could pull the plug anytime, roll the dice on the afterlife. 

"I'm ready." _Wait for me, Scully. I'm coming home_.

_Soul Trapped Inside a Robot_ , Jackson Pollack

**Author's Note:**

> You said you liked Mulder, and endgame Mulder/Scully. You also requested abstract expressionist art. The Pollack isn't abstract, but the title made me think of "The Ghost in the Machine," which then reminded me of "Kill Switch," which led me here.
> 
> Though I didn't realize it until much later, Scully's line is a direct quote from the episode.


End file.
